This Bitcoin Fork Is Defying Declines In Top Two Cryptos With A 5% Rally Thanks To Strong ETF Hopes In 2025

Litecoin LTC/USD became one of the biggest cryptocurrency gainers Tuesday, outpacing coins with significantly higher market capitalization. 

What happened: The proof-of-work cryptocurrency lifted over 5% in the last 24 hours to a market capitalization of $9.23 billion. The coin's trading volume surged 90% to $1.89 billion.

LTC's rally overshadowed heavyweights like Bitcoin BTC/USD and Ethereum ETH/USD, which fell 2.54% and 4.63%, respectively, in the last 24 hours.

The positive momentum was imparted following Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas' remarks that spot exchange-traded funds tied to LTC could get approval ahead of Solana SOL/USD and XRP XRP/USD.

Balchunas noted that as Litecoin is a hard fork of Bitcoin, it may avoid regulatory scrutiny since it is generally viewed as a commodity.

As of this writing, LTC has one S-1 filing, that was submitted by cryptocurrency-focused investment firm Canary Capital in October.

See Also: If You Invested $1,000 In Bitcoin When The First Bitcoin ETF Was Filed, Here’s How Much You’d Have Today

Why It Matters: After lagging behind much of the market in 2024, Litecoin got a fresh lease of life due to the broader rally spurred by Donald Trump's presidential victory last month. 

The coin has jumped 31% in the last month, exceeding the returns from Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Social mentions of the coin have significantly risen, according to social intelligence platform LunarCrush, potentially indicating growing retail interest.

🔭Zooming out, we see that $LTC continues to gain momentum with social mentions accelerating dramatically this year, hitting the highest point ever on November 15ᵗʰ. pic.twitter.com/UNPzIPKgJW

— LunarCrush Social Intelligence (@LunarCrush) December 18, 2024

Additionally, the coin's Open Interest surged 17% in the last 24 hours, and over 48% over the previous month, implying a surge in bets on future price movements.

Around 72% of traders on Binance were levered long on LTC as of this writing, according to the Long/Short Ratio.

Price Action:  At the time of writing, Litecoin was exchanging hands at $122.03, up 4.70% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

Photo by DIAMOND VISUALS on Shutterstock

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